A Magical Bond | 10
Stepping foot in Windenburg on the cusp of a long, lazy summer felt like the dictionary definition of a Zen retreat. Britechester was quaint, sure, but it was also overcrowded with rowdy, immature students intent on turning its cobblestone streets and turn-of-the-century architecture into Party Central. In comparison, Windenburg possessed a more mature and refined air, with its Old World-style houses, acres of thick green foliage, and rolling hills grazed by gently meandering herds of sheep. In other words, it was heaven. The moment she laid eyes on it, Cassie felt the weight of an entire year's worth of stressors lifted off her shoulders.
As soon as she saw Katy's aunt's vacation home, she felt even more relaxed. It was tucked into a remote, quiet corner of the countryside, where the closest neighbor was just barely visible over the next hill. Even if the entire summer passed and Cassie never got any closer to discovering the secrets of her own personal Door to the Magic Realm (which she hoped against hope wouldn't turn out to be the case), at least spending a few months in near seclusion in such an idyllic environment would give her an opportunity to sufficiently decompress from her first year of college, which she'd admittedly grown more and more disillusioned with (and less and less focused on) as it progressed.
"Wow, this place looks amazing!" Cassie gushed as they trekked up the lengthy dirt path to the front door together, Katy complaining the entire way but refusing to admit that her pristine Mary Janes might not be the most suitable shoes for the occasion. "It was so generous of your aunt to agree to let me stay here for the summer! Are you sure you can't stay longer?"
"I wish!" Katy replied, making such an extreme face of disgust that Cassie was actually impressed. "But, unfortunately, no, my unbearable parents have decided it would be some sort of formative experience for me to help out at the family business all summer." To distract from their ancient magical lineage (descending as they did from the Order of Enchantment's original founders, they were actually one of the most prestigious magical families in the world), Katy's parents owned and operated a ludicrously expensive luxury hotel in Del Sol Valley.
Cassie couldn't exactly bring herself to feel sorry for Katy. Spending a summer in close proximity to countless celebrities in a city that was perpetually sunny and 75 degrees in itself sounded like another version of heaven - one that should be right up Katy's alley. "Come on, I doubt it'll be that bad. Think of all the networking opportunities! You'll be rubbing elbows with more casting directors and agents and producers that you'll know what to do with!"
Katy laughed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. When was the last time you heard of the next great talent being discovered while running the reservation desk or setting up the complimentary breakfast buffet or, God forbid, scrubbing toilets? They'll barely give me a second glance."
"Well, you never know," Cassie persisted. "Anything could happen!"
"Trust me, I'll be counting down the days until I can visit. Now, come on. I promised you the grand tour, didn't I?"
They barely had to step foot inside for Cassie's senses to be overwhelmed by the opulence and grandiosity of the house's interior decoration. The walls were practically dripping with money. "Whoa," Cassie exhaled appreciatively, unable to form a more articulate response.
"Yeah, I forgot to tell you my aunt is tacky as shit," Katy said matter-of-factly, bursting Cassie's bubble. So she wasn't supposed to be impressed by all this? She was beginning to realize that rich people lived in an entirely different world than everyone else.
"Let's go upstairs. Just wait till you see the bedrooms. Her design sensibility is the absolute definition of gauche. There's not a drop of nuance or elegance to be found! My parents won't let her touch the hotel."
"Wait a minute," Cassie muttered, distracted by what she glimpsed around the corner. "I must investigate this kitchen."
Katy let out an impatient little laugh. "A kitchen's a kitchen. What on earth could there possibly be to investigate?"
She clearly didn't understand. It was the most beautiful kitchen Cassie had seen in her life, every inch of the massive space scrubbed clean until it sparkled and filled to the brim with top-of-the-line appliances that looked like they had never even been touched. She thought less than fondly of the oven in her and Sione's rental house, how it baked so unevenly that the difference between a perfectly golden cake bottom and a blackened mess stuck hopelessly to the pan felt like mere seconds. This oven, on the other hand, would surely produce perfection every time.
"One good thing I'll say for my aunt," Katy said, rummaging around noisily in the corner, "she can always be counted on to keep a well-stocked bar." Idly, she took up a couple large, heavy wine bottles and balanced them with little effort on top of her palm. "When I was in high school, I had the biggest crush on the bartender at my parents' place. I wore him down until he taught me a few tricks, though most of them were more of the PG-13 variety." She winked lasciviously. "Now, about those bedrooms..."
She poured drinks for both of them and then led the way up the stairs. When they reached the master bedroom, Cassie could see what she meant about her aunt's penchant for over-the-top design. The furniture was so ornate that the room looked fit for nothing less than a literal queen. Cassie couldn't imagine actually sleeping in the bed. She couldn't dare ruffle the immaculately smooth sheets or flatten the perfectly plump pillows. "Are they all like this?" she asked Katy tentatively.
Luckily, the guest bedroom down the hall was much less imposing. Although it resembled a hotel room, she at least felt comfortable enough in it to sit down on the edge of the bed and finish her drink. It didn't produce quite so much of the guilty sensation that she was intruding on a space she lacked the privilege to even step foot in.
She quickly made herself comfortable, unpacking her few belongings and testing out how conducive the atmosphere was to painting. It wasn't exactly the ideal creative environment, but it would do. After all, beggars couldn't be choosers. She was lucky to even have a place to stay all summer that wasn't either her mom's house or a cramped but grossly overpriced apartment she would have to work herself to the bone to be able to afford. She was lucky to have time and energy to paint at all.
On top of everything inside, Cassie's eye was drawn to a cluttered corner on the back patio, where a few neglected planter pots sat, just begging to be put to use. "Will your aunt mind if I try growing a little herb garden back here?"
"Go crazy," Katy responded in a cavalier tone. "No, really, do whatever you want. She's hardly here anymore anyway. I don't know why she won't just sell. Short of blowing the place up, I really doubt she'll care."
As the night air grew pleasantly chilled, they lit a bonfire to warm themselves up before heading to bed early. Katy had a red-eye to Del Sol Valley to catch at the crack of dawn. "I can already feel the air here reinvigorating me," Cassie said, taking in another big gulp of the stuff. "It's amazing how much more... bracing it already feels than even the air in Britechester. There's something about being surrounded by nature. It reminds me so much of home!"
Katy smiled, indulging her childlike wonder. "Well, I hope you have fun, like, becoming one with Mother Nature or whatever the hell you're planning to do out here. I'll be back next month, and I promise you can tell me all about your reawakening and then we'll track down that damn Door together, no matter what it takes."
"It's a deal," Cassie replied contentedly. This summer, she had decided, she was finally going to uncover her destiny.
On the other hand, Sione had decided that summer break was vastly overrated. Instead, he hunkered down in Britechester and reaffirmed his commitment to his studies, taking on two intensive robotics courses that, if he was lucky, would use up every last ounce of his brain power, leaving him little time to dwell on things he'd rather not be forced to confront any time soon - like his complicated feelings about Cassie that had only grown more complicated following her abrupt departure.
But he just couldn't seem to shake her from his mind. Soon enough, despite the endless piles of research he attempted to keep himself occupied with, more often than not, he found himself drifting into her abandoned bedroom in the middle of the night and idly picking up one of the Henry Puffer books she'd left behind. He was quickly sucked back into their immersive grip, up all night flipping hungrily through chapter after chapter. How had he ever let a handful of high school "cool kids" convince him that these books were anything but thoroughly brilliant? More importantly, how had something so relatively minor as a disagreement over a children's fantasy series planted the seeds for such a seemingly irreparable rift in his and Cassie's relationship? As he read, he only yearned to see her more.
To bury that desire, he'd have to go back to his old ways of practically living day in and day out in the robotics lab. It was even easier to get away with now, considering only a small handful of students had stayed behind for summer classes. At least Martin was still around to help him stay on task. But even Martin had a limit when it came to how many hours straight he could put in before wanting to rip his hair out. "Dude, you've barely left your work station in days. You've got to let me drag you to Pepper's Pub before you actually become one with the machines."
It wasn't the first time Martin had insisted on a debauched night out, and Sione was skeptical about letting his guard down. "I don't know," he replied cautiously.
"Come on! Two eligible bachelors like us? We should be out there scoring chicks left and right!"
Sione grudgingly relented. "Alright, one round and then I've got to get back to work."
At the packed bar, they found a solitary empty table in the corner and hunkered down with their cold, frothy pints. "See," Martin said with a knowing smile, watching as Sione took a generous gulp of his drink, "you're already enjoying yourself, aren't you?"
"Maybe just a little bit," he admitted.
Before they knew it, one pint turned into two turned into three turned into a full-blown beer pong tournament upstairs. Although he'd once considered himself a master of the game, Sione's skills had gone rusty. In the first round, he struggled with his aim and, one by one, his full-to-the-brim plastic cups were conquered by Martin in record time.
But then he got back into the swing of things and handily knocked out Martin without downing a single drink of his own - until, that is, he gamely chugged them all in quick succession at the end. "I'm having a great time, man," he slurred, sloppily toasting the air so that beer sloshed all the way down his arm.
Martin chuckled in amusement. "Yeah, dude, I can tell. Actually, you might want to consider winding down now..."
"No way!" Sione exclaimed. "What are you, some kind of lightweight? The night's still young! We're just getting started! In all honesty, man, I feel amazing. Who even needs a girl when I've got a best friend like you? So what if I screwed everything up? The girl I might actually have feelings for skipped town and, oh, yeah, she hates my guts anyway, and the girl who really wants me I've gone out of my way to ignore! What the hell's wrong with me, dude? But none of that matters, right? Romance is a waste of time anyway. I don't know why I even let it occupy so much of my brain!" He could have gone on like that forever, ranting and raving with no end in sight, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed the strange way Martin was staring at him, his eyebrows knotted in concern, his lips uncomfortably stretched into a strained smile.
"Oh, shit. Oh, fuck." All of a sudden, an entire river of tears was streaming down Sione's red face, and Martin had to clumsily direct him to the nearest seat. "I'm such a selfish asshole. Everything I touch turns to shit. I probably don't even deserve to be loved by either of them. I don't deserve to be loved by anyone!" It was around that time when his memory of the rest of the night went entirely black. He came to the next morning - miraculously, in his own bed - with the worst hangover of his life.
But that didn't stop Martin from dragging him to a school spirit event the same afternoon, claiming that all Sione needed to both cure his hangover and overcome his funk was a non-stop injection of adrenaline-fueled fun. When Sione shot him a pointed glare meant to telegraph that he didn't think his body was physically capable of handling yet another round of beer pong, Martin only smirked disbelievingly at his pained expression. "Give it the good old college try," he insisted. "For me." Well, it wasn't like he had anything better to do.
It was amazing how quickly these things seemed to go from zero to 100. In the blink of an eye, he went from doubting the soundness of his decision to stay to entrusting his life to some drunk guy he'd just met who kept insisting he was the master of keg stand assists. "Steadiest hands on campus, my man, I swear!"
That had been a mistake, Sione realized instantly. The guy's entire body started shaking like the world's most inebriated leaf, and within seconds Sione found his entire body hitting the concrete with an indelicate and painful smack that resonated all the way through his spinal column. He would be bruised and limping for days. And to think, only a few brief months ago, he'd somehow believed he liked doing this sort of stuff. What was he thinking?
In the chaos of everything, Martin had managed to slip away, almost certainly to cause trouble somewhere else. Sione was alone and miserable, surrounded by intolerable people he didn't care to get to know. Then, like a mirage in the desert, his saving grace appeared before him as suddenly as if she had materialized out of thin air. "Britta! Britta!" he called, tipsily flagging her down and stumbling over his own feet to reach her.
"What happened?" she exclaimed, worryingly taking in his disheveled state. "You promised you would call!"
"Sorry about that," he told her. "I haven't really been in the greatest headspace lately." Then, before he could stop himself, he rushed ahead. "Listen, I've given it some thought, and I think we should get back together. I just know it'll be so much better this time. I think we could be really good for each other."
